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How To Dial Contact Extension Numbers on Your iPhone
1The Phone app in iOS 6 is pretty darn smart. Sure it can dial numbers and it makes taking or placing a phone call quick and easy. But it also handles your contacts who have extension numbers equally as easily. If you use your iPhone in your business, chances are you have a contact or two that has an extension off of the company’s main number. In this How To I will show you how to setup the contact so that the Phone app dials the contact and the extension number.
First, go to the contact on your iPhone that you need to add an extension to for calling them. For their work number, tap
Enter a Pause or a Wait for Dialing a Contact
it to modify it so you can enter the number. After the main number is entered for them, tap the +*# button in the lower left of the dial pad. This brings you a sub-menu where you can add a pause, wait, add an star (asterisk) or pound (hash). Press the Pause button then enter the extension of your contact. You can also press Wait and enter the extension.
Dialing a Contact with Wait Feature
What’s the difference? A pause is represented by a , (comma) in the phone number string while a wait is represented by a ; (semicolon) in the number string. A pause waits two seconds after the call is connected and then starts automatically dialing the extension. A wait literally waits for you to press the Dial button once the call is connected. Which one you need will really depend on the person you are calling and the PBX you are calling into. Most contemporary solutions allow for both a pause and wait when dailing into them.
Using the Pause or Wait function is handing for contacts with extensions but it is also great for calling into standing conferences you may have each week. For example, you could create a contact with the conference information of your weekly calls then use the pause or wait feature to dial the conference bridge number after the main number has been called. What it won’t do in this scenario is enter a PIN or other security feature. It will get you to the proper conference, just not necessarily in it straight away.
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Clinton
Clinton is the editor of AlliOSNews.com. He has been writing opinions, reviews, how to's and anything related to the mobile communications market since 1999. You can follow Clinton on Twitter @AlliOSNews
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How To Filter Your iMessage Alerts
1iMessage, the free messaging service from Apple, has clearly been a game changer for Apple. With some 500 billion of them sent world wide, it is clear iMessage is here to stay. With all those message though it can be daughnting if you are getting them from people you know but you don’t have contacts information on. Take for example someone you meet at a trade show or the like who ends up with your mobile number and send you an iMessage.
Fortunately Apple has a built-in filtering system for iMessage to prevent you from getting alerts on messages sent from
Filter who you see alerts from in iMessage
those not in your contacts. It can help filter the important ones from the not-so-important ones. Rest assured though that even if you turn on this filter, all your iMessages will still be in your Message box. You just won’t get an alert.
To enable this filter, go into Settings>Notifications and scroll down until you find Messages in the list. Tap on it then scroll down to towards the bottom where you will see a section Show iMessage Alerts From: You have two options: Everyone, which is the default, and My Contacts Only. If you tap My Contacts Only you will only get alerts on your Lock Screen or Notification Center of iMessages that are sent from someone in your contacts. Those who are not in your contacts simply get sent to your Messages app but do not alert you.
If you ever want to change it back to where you see every iMessage notification, simply move this setting back to Everyone.
This How To is applicable to iOS 6 and is for iPhone, iPad and iPad Mini as well as the iPod Touch.
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Clinton
Clinton is the editor of AlliOSNews.com. He has been writing opinions, reviews, how to's and anything related to the mobile communications market since 1999. You can follow Clinton on Twitter @AlliOSNews
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How To Setup Restrictions on Your iPhone or iPad
Time for another AlliOSNews How To! With many young people receiving iPhones and iPads this Christmas, the question of being able to protect your kids from not-so-great things comes into play. While we all want our children to use and enjoy technology, we also need to protect them from particular types of media content as well as help guide them on responsibilities with their new iPhone or iPad.
Apple has made this easy for parents with the Restrictions settings in iOS. With restrictions, parents can restrict the type of content their children can access or use as well as restrict their ability to purchase or delete apps, access to apps like Facebook or FaceTime and even restrict if changes can be made to Contacts. This How To is not to tell you how to parent: Rather it is designed to give you information so you can make the right decision for your family.
To start, go to Settings on your iPhone or iPad and then scroll down to find Restrictions settings. By default these are
How to Find Restrictions in General Settings
disabled. Tap on the Enable Restrictions button and you are prompted to enter a 4-digit PIN. Think of this as the “Administrator PIN”. It is for you as a parent to know but not your children. By having the PIN, it prevents unwanted changes from happening on the iPhone but it also allows you to log in and tweak to make the content levels you want for your children grow with them. Once you have entered a PIN, all of the various restrictions you can put into effect are enabled.
Remember, this How To is to show you how, not tell you which restrictions to set into place. To disable the ability for your youngster to say delete an app, scroll down to the Deleting App and turn it off. Now when they tap-and-hold on an app to delete it, the iPhone will go into “wiggle” mode but the small X to delete an app will not appear.
There is also the ability to restrict the content that they can view for films, TV programmes, music and apps and these are based on your country’s ratings system. So for example you can restrict much that has been tagged as Explicit from being available to play or you can prevent any films for a rating of 18 from being played for your 12 year old.
How To Select which apps to restrict
You can also restrict what apps have access to what content on the iPhone or iPad. For example, if you have given the permission to install an app and that app wants access to your child’s Facebook account, you can restrict the iPhone to allow the app to install but not allow it to access their Facebook account. This could prevent them from installing a rogue app that they don’t know is going to search through their Facebook profile and potentially expose them to unwanted materials.
Finally, like enabling the Restrictions settings, to disable them you must have the PIN. This will assure that your teen doesn’t “accidentally” turn them off. 
While every parent has to make the right decision for their child on what is appropriate for them. This How To is designed to help you make that right decision without having to dive into the guts of iOS to figure it out. Apple has made it easy.
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Clinton
Clinton is the editor of AlliOSNews.com. He has been writing opinions, reviews, how to's and anything related to the mobile communications market since 1999. You can follow Clinton on Twitter @AlliOSNews
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How to setup a Lock Screen Message in OS X
Security should always be a priority when it comes to your Mac. In the past Mac owners have felt naturally safer because there wasn’t that many Macs out in the wild and quite frankly, thieves didn’t have much interest in them. Today is a different game with Macs becoming a mainstream part of the consumer and corporate landscape and thieves specifically targeting Macs, iPhones and iPads. In this How To I’m going to show you how to make your Mac more secure by requiring a password and displaying a Lock Screen message when your Mac is locked or booted up.
To start, go to System Preferences on your Mac and open up the Security & Privacy. Once it is open you will see several items which you can adjust to make your Mac more secure. First is the Require Password. You can set this up to require a password to access your Mac immediately, after a few seconds or up to 4 hours. I recommend setting this very low – 5 seconds to 1 minute – to lower the risk of a quick snatch of your Mac and someone gaining access to your data as they literally walk away with it. Whatever time you have this set up, it will go into effect when your display is turned off (part of the power settings), your screensaver starts, or you boot up/log into your account.
The next thing to do is setup a Lock Message. You’ll see below the Require Password setting a button Lock Message – 
click it to open up the Lock Message editor. What you put in here is entirely up to you. You can put something like your name, a contact phone number and if you will be rewarding anyone with the return of your Mac. I would discourage you from putting anything derogatory in the Lock Message on the outside chance that you may actually get it returned to you. Once you have composed the message that you like, it will 
immediately go into effect based on how long the Required Password timer is set.
Now that you have your Lock Message set and your Required Password timer, your Mac is that much more secure. While you are on the Security & Privacy settings, you can also Disable automatic logins by checking the box to do so which will require anyone who boots up your Mac to enter a password. Below that you can set up where apps can be downloaded from on your Mac – from the App Store only or anywhere. This is part of the Gatekeeper functionality built into Mountain Lion.
From this point forward, when you log in or when your screen is disabled as part of the Power settings you will see your Lock Message.
There is another great use for the Lock Message aside from the security implications I’ve outlined here. I work in a corporate environment where when I show up at a meeting in a large conference room, a full 75% of the room is usually 
full of MacBook Pros – the exact same 13″ model as mine. It is our corporate issued unit so naturally there are a lot of them around. How do you tell yours from others when you walk out of the room to get lunch for that working lunch meeting? With Lock Message you can make sure that when you return you actually return to your MacBook. Oh, and back to security – this also prevents co-workers with prying eyes from getting into your Mac.
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Clinton
Clinton is the editor of AlliOSNews.com. He has been writing opinions, reviews, how to's and anything related to the mobile communications market since 1999. You can follow Clinton on Twitter @AlliOSNews
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How To control which apps have access to your Contacts in iOS
As iOS has matured the integration between your personal information and applications that want access to that personal information has also matured. Apple has done a good job of making sure you know when an app requests access to your calendar, contacts, Twitter and Facebook accounts but also a good idea to just check up on things now and again to make sure the apps you don’t want to have access to your personal information doesn’t have it. In this How To I’m going to show you how to see which apps have access to your Contacts and how you can disable that access should you want to do so quick and easy.
First, go to Settings on your iPhone or iPad and scroll down to find the Privacy section and tap it. This will bring you into all of the privacy settings on your device. Now tap on the Contact section and it will bring you to the list of applications
Apps with Access to Contacts
that have access to your Contacts. Hopefully, if you have been careful, you should not see any surprises in this list. All of the apps here you would have had to approve to give access to your Contacts. But, if you gave access by accident or want to revoke the access, here is where you could disable access.
Each app that has access has an On/Off slider. Just slide it to Off for the apps you want to revoke access to your Contacts. When you are done just tap the Home button and all of your changes take place with immediate effect.
Now if you tap on the Privacy button at the top of the page to go back to the Privacy settings on your iPhone, you will see other apps such as Calendars, Reminders, Photos, Twitter and Facebook. If you remember back in August of last year I posted a How To on controlling which apps have access to your Twitter account. This is the same place, just a different app.
One of the many things I appreciate about iOS is how simple Apple does make it in giving you control over your information. For a company that is often accused of not having their customer’s best interests in mind, this clearly flies in the face of that notion.
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Clinton
Clinton is the editor of AlliOSNews.com. He has been writing opinions, reviews, how to's and anything related to the mobile communications market since 1999. You can follow Clinton on Twitter @AlliOSNews
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Edit your Carrier Name on your iPhone and iPad
If you follow me on Instagram you saw yesterday a post I made with the title “My new carrier”. Gone is my Vodafone UK branding and it has been replaced with an Apple icon. It use to be that in order to change the carrier branding on your iPhone or iPad you had to jailbreak your device, something that I’ve personally not done and really don’t have an interest in doing. Now a couple of developers, Kevin Ko & Daniel Levi, have created an app that runs on your Mac that quickly and
iPhone 5 with Apple Carrier Icon
easily allows you to change your carrier name with an app he has created, CarrierEditor.
CarrierEditor is a Mac-based app that allows you to create a small IPCC file that you can restore to your iPhone or iPad and it will change the carrier name to a selected set of icons – an Apple icon, an Android icon, a Batman icon, Transformer icon, etc. The app comes with several pre-built icons to chose from so selecting one is quick and easy. The instructions on how to do this are super simple and Ko & Levi have done an excellent job of walking you through step-by-step on how to modify your carrier name. They are also very clear that this
Carrier Editor
doesn’t jailbreak your device nor does it void the warranty. It is simply a software overwrite.
There are some carriers that are not supported, most notably Sprint in the US, as they do not use an image for the carrier name. The list is rather exhaustive of carriers that are supported worldwide so you will likely find your carrier with no problem. If you don’t find it however, that means you won’t be able to change the carrier name.
For more information including the downloadable executable to make this change, head to the CarrierEditor website.
First referenced on Cult of Mac
Clinton
Clinton is the editor of AlliOSNews.com. He has been writing opinions, reviews, how to's and anything related to the mobile communications market since 1999. You can follow Clinton on Twitter @AlliOSNews
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How To Activate Siri by holding your iPhone to your ear
I’m a big fan of Siri. Although it is still technically a beta from Apple, Siri has grown by leaps this past year with the improvements and expanded abilities in iOS 6. You can get anything from a stock quote to making a reservation at your local restaurant all with a tap-and-hold of the Home button on your iPhone 4S/5 or iPad 3rd/4th generation. The tricky bit comes in when you need Siri and you are in a crowded, noisy location. Sometimes Siri picks up the background noise, making it almost impossible to get it to understand what you are asking. Fortunately there is a way to make it easier for Siri to understand you in these situations and in this How To I’ll show you how to enable the Raise to Speak function of Siri.
Like many things in iOS, this How To highlights a functionality that is already built in but is rarely used or mentioned – but there a lot of good nuggets of usefulness in iOS if you look around. To enable Raise to Speak, go into the Settings of your
Enabling Raise to Speak on Siri
iPhone then go to General. About midway down the list you will see Siri listed as the settings that you can adjust. Tap on Siri and here you find all of the settings such as the language used, feedback of information and your personal information (so it can link it up in contacts). The last setting is an on/off toggle for Raise to Speak. Turn it on then tap the Home button to get back to your Home screen. Now hold your iPhone up to your ear as if you are making a phone call. Immediately you will hear to double-tone of Siri being activated. Now you can speak to Siri just as if you are making a call. When you pull your phone away from your ear, Siri deactivates.
Using Siri with the Raise to Speak feature enabled has dramatically improved the responsiveness of the service for me when I’m in a noisy situation such as in the middle of London, on a train, etc. It still has a higher error rate than when I’m in a quite room but it is usable now where as in normal mode that was often not the case. Your mileage will vary but give it a try and see if this mode works better for you in noisy places.
As a final point, you will not find this setting in iOS for iPad – it is an iPhone only functionality. It does however work on both the iPhone 4S and 5 as both of those models have Siri enabled.
Let us know how this How To helps – leave a comment or follow us on Twitter or Facebook.
Clinton
Clinton is the editor of AlliOSNews.com. He has been writing opinions, reviews, how to's and anything related to the mobile communications market since 1999. You can follow Clinton on Twitter @AlliOSNews
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How To add a Shared List to Reminders in Mountain Lion
Whether it is a “Honey Do” list or a grocery list, couples always need to share tasks and lists with each other. Fortunately for couples on Macs and/or iOS devices, doing so is quick and easy with the Reminders app. The Reminders app is built into OS X Mountain Lion as well as iOS 5/6 for iPhone and iPad. Through iCloud, any list you create is replicated to all of your devices and when you create a shared list, it is sent to those which you have designated to share the list with on their devices.
In this How To I show you how to create a list in Reminders in OS X then how to share it with others.
Clinton
Clinton is the editor of AlliOSNews.com. He has been writing opinions, reviews, how to's and anything related to the mobile communications market since 1999. You can follow Clinton on Twitter @AlliOSNews
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How To Change the Direction of Panorama Pictures on your iPhone 4S or 5
One of the exciting new features of the camera app that came in iOS 6 is Panoramic. This mode, available on the iPhone 4S and iPhone 5, allow you to sweep your camera around you to capture a full length panoramic shot. It works amazingly well with images having few of the traditional artefact problems that panoramic apps have with them.
Panoramic of Theatre Royal Windsor
By default Panoramic has you sweep your iPhone from left-to-right while you are capturing a photo. This works well in almost every situation but others it will be easier and better to go from right-to-left. Fortunately Apple has made it easy to do this straight from within the Camera app itself.
To get to Panoramic mode, open the Camera app then tap on Options. You will see the Panoramic button there and tap it to go into Panoramic mode. On screen you are shown instructions on what you need to do to capture the panoramic shot. You will see that the arrow on the instructions are pointing from left-
Panorama Default Direction
to-right, indicating that is the direction you need to go in order to capture your shot.
Panorama alternate direction
To change the direction to right-to-left, simply tap the arrow. Instantly you will see the instructions and indicator change to the right side of the screen. Now you can start capturing your panoramic shot sweeping in the “reverse” direction.
When you close the Camera app and relaunch it, this function will go back to the default left-to-right. There is no way to permanently change this within iOS (although I’m sure a jailbreak of some type likely does).
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Clinton
Clinton is the editor of AlliOSNews.com. He has been writing opinions, reviews, how to's and anything related to the mobile communications market since 1999. You can follow Clinton on Twitter @AlliOSNews
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How To enable Tweetbot iCloud syncing on your Mac, iPhone and iPad
Last week Tapbots released the much anticipated Tweetbot Twitter app for OS X. One of the features that this powerful Twitter app brings is the ability to synchronize with iCloud. What this means is if you are reading your Twitter timeline in Tweetbot on your Mac then move to your iPad, where you were in your timeline will be where you pick up on your iPad. It is leveraging the power of iCloud to make things easier for the end user. Enabling iCloud sync is easy to do on both the iOS versions of Tweetbot and the OS X version and in this How To I will show you how to enable it to your advantage.
Starting with Tweetbot for Mac, go to Preferences (command+comma) and go to the Accounts tab. Here is where all of
Account Settings in Tweetbot for Mac
your Twitter accounts you have setup in Tweetbot are displayed. At the bottom of this page there is the option to Sync. You can chose to either sync with iCloud or Tweet Marker or nothing. Chose iCloud then close the settings page. Now as you navigate your timeline in the app, your location in it will be synchronized to iCloud.
Now you need to do the same thing in Tweetbot on your iPhone or iPad. In my case I’m showing you on my iPad but the navigation is the same on either device. In Tweetbot go to Settings>Accounts and select the account you want to enable synchronization on. The 5th option down under Services is Sync. Set this to iCloud then navigate your way back out. Now, just like on your Mac, your navigation of your timeline within Tweetbot for your iPad or iPhone is synchronized to iCloud.
This is just one of the ways that sets Tweetbot apart from other Twitter applications in the iTunes App Store and the Mac App Store. Leveraging
Account Settings in Tweetbot for iPad
iCloud just makes sense and it is good to see developers starting to take advantage of the service from Apple.
Tweetbot is available for your Mac for $19.99 with limited availability while the app for your iPhone or iPod Touch is $2.99 and for iPad it is also $2.99 (separate downloads).
Tweetbot for OS X – $19.99 – LIMITED SUPPLY – Download Now
Tweetbot for iPhone & iPod touch – $2.99 – Download Now
Tweetbot for iPad – $2.99 – Download Now
Clinton
Clinton is the editor of AlliOSNews.com. He has been writing opinions, reviews, how to's and anything related to the mobile communications market since 1999. You can follow Clinton on Twitter @AlliOSNews
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